DETECTIVE COMICS #483 - 485

"THE CURSE OF CRIME ALLEY" | "ASSAULT ON OLYMPUS!"
Writer: Denny O'Neil | Artists: Don Newton & Dan Adkins
Letterers: Todd Klein (issue 483) & Gaspar Saladino (issue 484)
Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Julius Schwartz

Meanwhile, in the pages of DETECTIVE COMICS... not much has changed since last we checked in. Dennis O'Neil is still writing it and Julius Schwartz is still editing it. But we do have a new art team, and a pretty dynamic one to boot: Don Newton on pencils with Dan Adkins supplying inks.

I mentioned last week that Paul Levitz had taken over editorship of BATMAN, but I don't think I said that Schwartz had remained on DETECTIVE. I find it noteworthy that this is the second time in the seventies that Schwartz has had one of the two Bat-titles removed from his purview (not counting THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, which he never edited to begin with). Previously, he lost DETECTIVE COMICS to Archie Goodwin, and now it's BATMAN to Levitz. I guess it's not that I'm confused as to why a title was transplanted from one editorial office to another; that's bound to happen now and then. But I am curious as to why, in both cases, one of the two Batman books was moved. Why not both?

Anyway! DETECTIVE 483 and 484 introduce us to one of Batman's most storied foes, the gang leader who fancies himself a Greek god in mortal flesh, Maxie Zeus. As we'll see in upcoming installments, O'Neil seemed pretty intent on making Zeus the next Ra's al Ghul (Batman even compares his cunning to al Ghul's at one point), and out of the five more O'Neil-written issues we're going to look at after this post before our retrospective is done, three will feature Zeus as the villain. In fact, counting this post, that's eight O'Neil stories with Zeus featuring into five (and al Ghul in all of the other three)!

BATMAN #312 - 314

"A CAPER A DAY KEEPS THE BATMAN AT BAY!"
Writer: Len Wein | Artists: Walt Simonson & Dick Giordano
Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Paul Levitz

Beginning this month, longtime editor Julius Schwartz is off BATMAN, replaced by Paul Levitz. I once read, years ago, that Levitz came in and upended Len Wein's plan for the series, demanding that every issue feature a costumed villain, and that the stories be mostly self-contained. I'm not certain of the truth of this rumor, though. Wein certainly will go on to use super-villains pretty much exclusively for the remainder of his run, but he had already been doing it from the moment he started! The only exception was his inaugural installment, issue 307, which featured a serial killer. But since then, it's been Mr. Freeze, Blockbuster, and Gentleman Ghost -- and prior to that, in his two-part DETECTIVE COMICS story, he introduced a new Clayface!

Plus, the storylines will not be self-contained going forward. We have a few two-parters on the way, and Marvel-style sub-plots will continue to be the norm throughout the entire run. So I really don't know where that rumor came from -- I honestly can't recall where I read it, since it was probably ten years ago at this point -- but I felt it was worth mentioning for posterity.

Now, on with the stories at hand. We begin with one that featured in THE GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD, though I've never quite been certain why. It follows a week in Batman's life as he battles the nefarious Calendar Man, failing to thwart him at every turn until Sunday rolls around, when the Caped Crusader finally gets his act together and brings the bad guy to justice. I feel like there are much stronger Wein-written stories that could've made their way into GREATEST STORIES, so the only reason I can imagine for its inclusion over anything else is that it features artwork from Walter Simonson -- back to form following those two horrid issues he contributed to Steve Englehart's DETECTIVE run a couple years earlier.